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Lousy with LiceIt is only in the last century that mankind has not been largely covered with bugs. |
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Since ancient times, mankind has had one constant companion -- one neighbor he could always count on to be with him whenever and wherever he went: the louse. The human louse has so befriended us that he cannot live without us. When we are separated whether by distance, or death, or any other cause, he perishes quickly unless another host can be found. It is difficult to for us to imagine how different the world must have been when everybody was crawling with bugs! As Hans Zinsser comments in his tour de force, Rats, Lice and History: "It was not so long ago, indeed, that [the louse's] prevalence extended to the highest orders of society, and was accepted as an inevitable part of existence -- like baptism, or the smallpox." What an opportunity for philosophical discussion we are missing in these sanitized times! Since the louse cannot live without its human host, there has been much debate as to whether Adam and Eve were, shall we say, lousy. Never mind angels dancing on a pin or belly buttons -- here's a real dilemma! A contributor to Gentleman's Magazine in 1746 writes "We can hardly suppose that [the louse] was quartered on Adam and his lady -- the neatest pair (if we believe John Milton) that ever joyned hands. And yet, as it disdained to graze the fields or lick the dust for sustenance, where else could it have had its subsistence?" I suppose we'll never know...
What do lice have to do with history? Well, one must only ask what disease has to do with history, for the louse is the vehicle for pestilence of all sorts. When armies gather, they get sick. When 80 or 90 percent of a city is killed by disease, social structures change. Simple. During the Russian revolution, there was an outbreak of typhus (transmitted by lice) so severe that Lenin remarked, "Either socialism will defeat the louse, or the louse will defeat socialism." Often, when it comes right down to it, it doesn't matter how smart a general is or how determined a king is, if their armies get sick, then history won't turn out the way they want. Imagine if typhus had so ravaged Trotsky's Red Army that the Bolsheviks had lost power to a more moderate group of socialists! America even sent troops to oppose the Communist revolution -- what if Amercia had been on the winning side? To get an idea of how powerful a force disease is, and to remind the historian that it should not be overlooked, allow us to quote Hans Zinssner's account of a famous plague of ancient times -- the Plague of Justinian. It started in the year 540, perhaps prompted by a series of earthquakes and floods which created refugee conditions across much of Eastern Christendom.
Four months the plague remained in Byzantium. At first, few died -- then there were 5000, later 10,000 deaths a day. [Quoting from Procopious, a contemporary historian. Such numbers are almost surely exaggerations, as any number above a few thousand tended to mean 'many' in those times - HH] 'Finally, when there was a scarcity of gravediggers, the roofs were taken off the towers of the forts, the interiors filled with the corpses, and the roofs replaced.' Corpses were placed on ships, and these abandoned to the sea. 'And after the plague had ceased, there was so much depravity and general licentiousness, that it seemed as though the disease had left only the most wicked.' Now there's social decay. Byzantium was no podunk kingdom -- they were the bee's knees of the Ancient world. Inner city violence and condoms in schools have nothing on the power of the plague. This plague nearly single-handedly defeated Emperor Justinian's attempts to reunite the Roman Empire; imagine if he'd succeeded. But we're venturing into serious history here. Our apologies. We'll skip the famous Black Death and move right along. Centuries of co-existence with the louse have certainly left their mark. Robbie Burns, the patron poet of Scotland, even found the time to write an Ode to a Louse. It's not too surprising to find that lice colored people's relations in very amusing ways. We quote again from Rats, Lice and History: ...among the Aztecs before the advent of Cortez, is the tale cited from Torquemada. 'During the abode of Montezuma among the Spaniards, in the palace of his father, Alonzo de Ojeda one day espied... a number of small bags, tied up. He imagined at first that they were filled with gold dust, but on opening one of them what was his astonishment to find it quite full of Lice!' Cortez... then asked... for an explanation. He was told that the Mexicans had such a sense of duty to pay tribute to their ruler that the poorest, if they possessed nothing else to offer, daily cleaned their bodies and saved the lice. And when they had enough to fill a bag, they laid it at the feet of their king. How 'bout them apples? Well, Ojeda probably chuckled more than anything else. After all, even kings were full of bugs. And in that day, when the rich were no better heated than the poor, and washing was just not something that was expected, that's not surprising. Zinsser writes:
MacArthur's story of Thomas a Becket's funeral illustrates [this]: -- The archbishop was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on the evening of the twenty-ninth of December. The body lay in the Cathedral all night, and was prepared for burial on the following day... He had on a large brown mantle; under it, a white surplice; below that, a lamb's-wool coat; then another woolen coat; and a third woolen coat below this; under this, there was the black, cowled robe of the Benedictine Order; under this, a shirt; and next to the body a curious hair-cloth, covered with linen. As the body grew cold, the vermin that were living in this multiple covering started to crawl out, and, as MacArthur quotes the chronicler: 'The vermin boiled over like water in a simmering cauldron, and the onlookers burst into alternate weeping and laughter.' Think about that the next time you're in church and it's a bit drafty. Or next time you feel awkward at a funeral. We all find ourselves confused sometimes by changing social mores. Are men supposed to open doors for women anymore? (For your grandmother, yes, because you have to; for your girlfriend, also yes, also because you have to. The former regards it as chivalry, the latter re-label it sensitivity. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?) Here's a custom we here at History House are glad isn't common in our neck of the woods: Weizl informs us that, when sojourning for a short time among the natives of Northern Siberia, young women who visited his hut sportively threw lice at him. On inquiry concerning this disconcerting procedure, he was embarrassed by learning that this was the customary manner of indicating love, and a notice of serious intentions. A sort of 'My louse is thy louse' ceremony. There's really not much more to say, is there? Pass the soap. Bibliography
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